|
| |
|
Has Tru Calling that certain something?
An article about genre shows with that special something. With "Babylon 5", "Smallville" and an emphasis on "Tru Calling"! |
"That Certain Something" By: DAVID MICHAEL WHARTON
Just what is it that makes some TV shows so damn good?
 I come not to praise TRU CALLING but to bury it.
In case you hadn't heard, former Slayer Eliza Dushku's GROUNDHOG DAY/RUN LOLA RUN hybrid went down for the big dirt nap a while back. I can’t imagine that even the cast and crew were terribly surprised: the ratings last season weren't exactly enough to raise the dead, and this season's order had been cut from 13 to 6. And while I'm sure the show had die-hard fans, and with all apologies to the "save-our-show" campaign that is no doubt already well underway, for most of its run, TRU wasn't exactly blazing new grounds in speculative fantasy.
I watched it; I sometimes quite enjoyed it; but more often than not, it fell prey to the formulaic nature of its premise. Somebody died. Tru got the Big Rewind. It turned out that what Tru thought she was supposed to do wasn't actually what she was supposed to do, and she scrambled during the last act to clean up the mess of the first couple of acts. Rinse and repeat as necessary.
But the short life and sudden demise of TRU CALLING got me thinking about a phenomenon that seems to be peculiarly common amongst genre shows. Because there towards the end, TRU CALLING had That Certain Something.
Plenty of crappy sitcoms survive long past their sell-by date and even have people that watch them week-in, week-out, but these people aren't running websites devoted to them. They wouldn't be upset for more than a few minutes if their shows got cancelled. They certainly wouldn't rally a nationwide save-our-show campaign. Yet even mediocre genre shows inspire all this and more. They inspire people to compile episode guides and dress up like the show's stars and pen dodgy fan fiction. You probably won't find anyone engaged in heated eBay bidding over memorabilia from STARK RAVING MAD, but I'm sure somebody somewhere has organized an ADVENTURES OF SINBAD convention at least once. Some x-factor in our geek makeup makes us more likely to give genre shows the benefit of the doubt. Maybe it's because we're so desperate for quality genre material; maybe it's because we know that when genre gets it right, it can be truly amazing; maybe it's because we're all gluttons for punishment.
Sometimes that devotion works out. In 1993, I sat through the shaky pilot episode of BABYLON 5 and saw something amongst the wooden lead and bad puppets that intrigued me enough to stick through the first season when it premiered the next year. As a result, I got to watch an engrossing, five-year novel unspool on television, something that really hadn't been done on American television at that time. I also hold bragging rights over my friends who bailed out and then regretted it when the quality of later seasons lured them back in. On the other hand, 1993 also saw the premiere of short-lived SF action series SPACE RANGERS, which for some reason most likely involving blackmail starred Oscar-winner Linda Hunt and featured lines like, "Hold onto your jockstraps, boys." Even at the tender age of 15, the odor wafting from SPACE RANGERS was unmistakable to me.
 These days, my wife and I still watch SMALLVILLE, four seasons in. It's a bizarre relationship we have with SMALLVILLE. Half the time we tune in, we spend the episode making snarky comments about what superpowered mutant the Kryptonite-Villain Generator (patent pending) has vomited out this week, or how the writing staff has decided to yet again waste 45 minutes putting Clark and Lana back on the "will they or won't they" merry-go-round.
But what keeps bringing us back, week after week, is when they get it right. The relationship between Clark and Lex, so full of portent, doomed from the beginning to end in tragedy, but never quite clear as to how it will arrive at that destination. The unique take on the mythology of Krypton and Clark's powers, which--love it or hate it--has made this decades-old tale feel fresh, and which has captured the imaginations of a brand new generation. The moments that cash in the collateral of all the baggage we as viewers and fans bring to the table: the future-flash of Lex standing in the Oval Office…the first time Clark takes flight…the chill-inducing first meeting between Clark and Dr. Swann (as played by the late and much-missed Christopher Reeve), as the strains of John Williams' classic SUPERMAN score seep in over the dialogue. These are the moments that, for me, outweigh all the tiresome Kryptonite silliness, and that keep me coming back. These moments make up That Certain Something.
SMALLVILLE has it. BABYLON 5 had it. Even TRU CALLING had it, or at least eventually developed it, but not soon enough. So what was that "certain something" for TRU?
Believe it or not, it was Jason Priestly.
It was only with the introduction of Jack, the mysterious morgue attendant, that things really started getting interesting. And it was only with the season-ending revelation that he possessed the same gift as Tru, but that he was her equal but opposite--where she sought to save lives, he maintained the balance by trying to ensure that those who died once stayed dead--that the show revealed its potential to become an excellent show. Forget the corpse of the week, here was the potential for real drama, for using genre storytelling to do what it's supposed to do: to use the tropes of fantasy or science fiction or horror to ask the hard questions and explore our own world through the prism of others unlike ours. When Jack entered the picture, the show was no longer about how Tru could do what she did; it was about whether she SHOULD do what she did. It asked, amazingly, "What if Tru is really the bad guy?" And that, my friends, is the sort of question that could have carried a show for many seasons to come.
But now it never will. And maybe that's for the best. As it is, we're left with more questions than answers, but sometimes that's better than getting answers you don't like (some would cite the conclusion of the Shadow War in B5, though I don't agree) or having the questions answered with a never-ending string of more questions (see later seasons of X-FILES).
 Maybe shows like TRU suffer from the structures of American serialized television. Everyone is expected to fill 22 episodes of story per season (assuming a full-season pickup), but what if your story doesn't merit 22 episodes? If the writers of TRU had known from the beginning that they'd only have, say, 11 episodes to work with, would they have introduced Jack earlier? Would they have spent more time focusing on the underlying mythology of the show, of the nature of Tru's powers and her legacy, and on the questions of morality that her powers suggested? Would they really have spent an entire 45 minutes on a "beauty pageant" episode? Would they have found That Certain Something sooner, rather than later? Rather than too late?
So what about you? What shows have inspired you to suffer through the muck to get to the diamonds? What shows make you giddy when they soar, and make you curse them that much more when they fall back to the easy road, to the "villain-of-the-week"? What are your own personal TRU CALLINGs or SMALLVILLEs? Shoot your thoughts to inhetet@hotmail.com, and I'll run the more interesting responses in a future column.
Would we all be better off if we were harsher critics of these silly little shows we love? Probably. But I can't help but think that if I didn't listen to the instinct that told me there was more to this BABYLON 5 thing than the pilot let on, I would have missed out on one of my favorite shows of all time. And that's not a trade I'd care to make.
Keep your head and hands inside the television, folks…
| | [by Roadi (Cinescape) ] [0 comments]
|
| |
| AD | 
|
| |
Buffy the Vampire Slayer, its characters, and the Buffy logo are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, the WB Television Network, and Twentieth Century Fox. Angel-The Series, its characters, and the Buffy logo are the property of Joss Whedon, Mutant Enemy, the WB Television Network, and Twentieth Century Fox.Other Series, their characters and logos are property of the proper right owners.
(c)Slayerverse 2006 [Imprint] |
